


Spaces Between Us

by desreelee123



Category: Sicario (2015)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Depression, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Canon, Post-Movie(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 07:16:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5239412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desreelee123/pseuds/desreelee123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She may not be a wolf, but she is not a sheep either.<br/>(And she’ll be damned if she’ll allow him to cow her once more.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spaces Between Us

The days and weeks and months following the mission flit by in an incomprehensible wave of paperwork and lack of sleep. There is something disorienting about Kate’s days now. It’s as if she’s running on autopilot and nothing really registers except for the constant ringing of telephones and the tap-tap-tap of keyboards. Reggie periodically gives her worried glances from the corner of her eye but Kate knows that’s all she’ll be getting from him. He knows better than to ask why after all.

The glow of her computer monitor has become a new constant in her life. She has been temporarily, unofficially assigned to do deskwork after the mission. Jennings probably thought she needed the rest as evidenced by the numerous times he has prodded her for a vacation in the course of the month since the mission ended.

Which, of course, she does need but is just too stubborn to admit it.

_You are not a wolf, Kate._

The words drum across her ears throughout her mornings in the shower and the nights when she just stares up the bare ceiling of her bedroom when she decides not to take her pills.

The affidavit she signed a month and a lifetime ago has been submitted to the higher-ups and reviewed and filed into a folder along with other reports concerning the mission. (The piece of paper to which she signed a crucial, integral part of herself off to, the part of herself that she’ll never get back.) Signed and sealed in a neat signature in black ink. (She remembers how her hands had shivered as she signed her name, all too aware of the cold metal of the gun pressed under her chin and of his dark, empty eyes. Watching. Always watching.)

She leans back in her chair and rubs her palms against her eyes, sore from a whole day of staring at a glowing screen. Her legs have fallen asleep from disuse. She feels like she’s going to have a migraine anytime now.

Kate contemplates going home early for the day. It’s not like Jennings would deny her that small reprieve. The dark circles under her eyes and the sudden looseness of her clothes are quite obvious to the entire office. Some of the other agents have even started to gossip about it. (How the brilliant Kate Macer looks like a fucking zombie on steroids.)

She stands up and grabs her backpack, a thought—a decision rather striking her all of a sudden.

“Kate, where are you going?” Reggie asks startled by her abrupt movement, turning around from his computer monitor.

“I’m going to finally take that fucking vacation,” she answers curtly as she makes a beeline for her boss’s office.

* * *

 

As expected, Jennings approves her request for leave. Two weeks. She goes straight home and showers, trying to wash away that sullied part of her. (She is angry. So, so angry of how weak she was, how weak they made her.)

_This is the land of wolves now._

Steam billows from the shower and envelopes the entire bathroom, making everything hazy and surreal. She examines the two new scars she had gotten on her chest. (On some nights, she still remembers how the bullets had knocked the wind out of her as she toppled to the ground in that tunnel, much like how a bridge would collapse under a huge cataclysm. He was _is_ her cataclysm.) She runs a finger over the surface of the scar and thinks about how another part of her had been shot and ripped away like the skin on her chest. (The body heals but the mind doesn’t. Instead, it adapts. And Kate refuses to be broken. She refuses. She may not be a wolf but she is not a cowering sheep either.)

She wonders if she should’ve shot him, the _Sicario_ , the ghost, then and there when she had the chance. Wonders whether she should’ve given him a mark to remember her by just like how he had given her.

(She knows she could never have done it then because back then, a month and a lifetime ago, she was another person. Another Kate.)

* * *

Kate chugs down a bottle of beer as she scrolls through various travel websites, trying to find a destination that can get her away from this place for a while, give her a breath of the fresh air she desperately needs.

Fifteen minutes of nothing and she begins to think that she had just made a mistake for taking this vacation. She sighs and slams her laptop shut and does all she can from looking up new updates regarding Mexico’s drug war. Things have gotten worse since the mission ended and Manuel Diaz, along with Fausto Alarcon and his wife and two sons, was found dead inside Alarcon’s compound. The former having bled to death instantaneously from a gunshot wound that severed his carotid artery and the latter having been shot twice, once in the head and once in the chest…or was it thrice? Kate can’t be sure. There were new bodies appearing every day as various factions vie for control over the cartel, each death grislier than the last one.

 Kate can’t help but think that this is all somehow her fault. (Her fault for being too weak to fight back, her fault for being too scared, her fault for not asking more questions. Her fault, her fault, her fault.) She opens another bottle from the twelve-pack she retrieved from her refrigerator and gulps down another bottle.

Two down, ten more to go.

* * *

 

Kate dreams of him in the darkest part of the night when everyone, even the wolves, are asleep. He is always dressed in that suit of his, eyes hooded and unreadable but watching. Always watching.

She wakes up in a sweat, panting and heaving and strangely hot all over. Kate always blames it on the heat and the general cloud that her mind sinks into on the off times she manages to sleep without her pills.

She lies on her single bed for a while, trying unsuccessfully to ease her mind back to the stupor of sleep. After a while, she gets impatient and swings her feet on the edge of the bed, getting into a sitting position. She gets the pack of cigarettes she stows away on the drawer of her nightstand and lights one up. (She doesn’t use her balcony to smoke anymore.) She inhales the nicotine deeply into her lungs and exhales out a puff of smoke.

 _God,_ she thinks, _I’m such a fucking mess._

She checks the time on her phone. 2:35 am. Kate thinks about firing up her laptop and booking a ticket to San Jose to see her parents. She hasn’t seen them since last Christmas, save for the sporadic Skype video chats she has with her mom. Besides, it’ll probably do her good get her mind off things for a while. (That’s what she did after her divorce from Jordan a year and a month ago, when she had still been another person.)

She’s about to leave a voicemail to her parents alerting them to her arrival when she decides not to, thinking about all the questions she’s probably going to get from her parents. ( _Honey, why are you so thin? Honey, what happened? Honey, is that job pushing you too hard? Honey, is that job killing you?)_

Kate lies back down on her bed and turns to her side.

Sleep does not come for her again that night.

* * *

 

Kate is heating up a box of microwave pizza when she hears a knock. She immediately goes over to her door and gazes through the peephole. It’s Reggie, holding a box of Chinese takeout and a six-pack. She unlocks her door and lets him in.

“Hey Kate,” he says as he heads for her couch.

“Hey Reg,” she says back as she closes the door behind him. “Want some microwave pizza?”

“Nah,” he answers, “brought some Chinese takeout though. Might do you good to eat something other than microwave pizza once in a while.”

She laughs, the sound short and sudden. It’s the first time she’s laughed for real since the assignment. She closes the lid of the pizza box and puts it back on its previous spot in the fridge. She goes to sit beside her friend as he flips on the TV, absentmindedly turning to a cooking channel.

“So…how have you been doing?” he asks the inevitable question without preamble. Reggie is usually a no-nonsense kind of person when it comes to stuff like these, something that Kate really likes about him on most days. On most days.

‘’I’m fine,” she replies, not quite meeting his eyes as she says this.

“Okay,” Reggie concedes, unpacking the boxes of takeout from its container. They mostly talk about new cases and regular office stuff for most of the night while swigging down beer and chomping on fried rice and dumplings. He brings up the topic about her bra once and she laughs it off with a flourish. (But she does make a mental note of buying new ones because really, that bra was truly unbelievably ugly.) He never brings up anything about the mission or drug cartels or Mexico in general, which Kate is grateful to him for.

They finish the six-pack and crack jokes to each other for the rest of the night, long after the takeout boxes are emptied. At precisely eleven-thirty in the evening, Reggie glances at his watch and says, “Hey Kate, I think I gotta go home…I’ve got work tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Kate stands up along with Reggie to show him the door. (Formalities, formalities.) “Thanks for the beer and the food Reg,” she tells him with a smile. “It’s been nice hanging out with you.”

“No problem Kate,” he steps out of the doorway with a smile, “just ring me up whenever you need something, ‘kay?”

There is a note of worry in his tone as he says this.

“Yeah, I’ll remember that.”

He nods at her one last time before setting off down the hallway. She closes the door behind her and sighs, the emptiness of her apartment echoing through her ears.

Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howls.

* * *

 

 _Bahamas,_ Kate repeats the words in her mind for the umpteenth time, hoping that it would finally fit in her head like lock and key. The “fasten seatbelts” sign switch on, as they get ready to land. Kate doesn’t really know what made her choose Bahamas. She had been scrolling through a travel website yet again when the place came to her like a slap across the face. Swift and sudden. Before she knew what she was doing, she had already been entering her credit card details on an afternoon flight to the island.

 _Damn,_ she thinks, _hope this works._

She looks out the window as they land, marveling at the azure of the waters below. She imagines herself lounging at a small patio, looking out at the ocean and forgetting about life for a moment. (Forgetting about how wolves sound when they howl.)

A small grin cracks across her face.

Maybe this vacation isn’t going to be a complete waste of time after all.

* * *

 

She settles into a small inn by the sea. There are not much people checked in with her this time of the year she was told. Which, undoubtedly, is a good thing considering she really needs the time off from the world, in general. The innkeeper is a nice chubby woman with tan skin and braided hair. She is swathed in colorful robes that match the colors of the eternal summer here in Bahamas.

“Here you go madam,” she says in thickly accented English as she opens the door to Kate’s room. Kate takes a look around the small room before nodding in approval. She hands the woman a rumpled ten-dollar bill before sending her away. Once the innkeeper has left her alone, she immediately lays her backpack on the bed and sits at a chair made out of driftwood. She looks out at the beach beyond her balcony and admires the natural blue of the ocean as it laps against the white sand. She makes a mental note of sending a postcard to her parents and Reggie with a picture of the beach later.

She breathes in the scent of the salt-tinged air and finally relaxes against her seat. Her muscles unwind like coils that have been wound up for too long. She kicks off her shoes and simply leans against the wooden back of the chair. The sun filters in through the open balcony doors and bathes the room in an ethereal, almost angelic glow, making Kate sleepy. She yawns once as her eyes start to get heavy.

The last thing she sees is the brown of the ceiling mixing with the rays of the sun before finally drifting into a deep, restful sleep.

* * *

 

Kate stirs to the sound of the wind rustling against the leaves of the coconut trees. It’s already dark out and she wonders how long she’s been asleep. She stands up from the wooden chair and stretches her limbs, testing out her rejuvenated muscles.

She hasn’t slept like that in a very long time, the disjointed feel of a pill-induced sleep notwithstanding. (It’s simply not the same in the sense that a bulldog is not the same as a Labrador.) Her shirt is clinging to her body in the heat and her pants feel like a ton of bricks on her legs. _Humidity,_ she thinks as she strips in front of the open balcony doors. There’s no one watching anyway. Once she’s completely naked save for her underwear, she relishes the feel of the wind brushing against her skin for a few moments. It soothes her pores and unwinds her even more. She has not been aware that she was this tightly wound up back in Arizona.

Kate opens her backpack and pulls out a soft white maxi dress that she wasn’t even aware that she’d packed (or owned, for that matter) and flip-flops. Once she’s already dressed, she grabs the keys to her room from the top of the table and heads out to the beach, eager to find some shack where she can eat seafood and just look out at the ocean. She finds one at the far end of the beach. A nice middle-aged Frenchman manages it. He serves her lobster and a beer leaves her alone most of the time, which she is thankful for. (Kate’s not really a sociable person on her best of days or on her worst for that matter.) The hem of her dress brushes against her calves gently as the wind steadily blows against the beach.

Everything’s so calm around here. Separate from the world. (Separate from her world.) She takes off her flip-flops and digs her toes into the sand. It’s soft and smooth against her feet.

For once, she doesn’t think of wolves or of Mexicans and cartels and decapitated bodies.

* * *

 

The second day pretty much goes in the same fashion. In the morning, Kate makes a trip to one of the seaside shops and buys a pack of cigarettes and two postcards and mails it to Arizona and San Jose, respectively. At noontime, the innkeeper invites her to eat with her. She spins stories about mythical creatures and animals and Kate surprisingly gets mystified. (She’s never been a story type of person.) In the afternoon, Kate naps in her room’s wooden chair while facing the view of the beach beyond. In the evening, she walks the beach and finds another restaurant to eat in.

Yet again, she does not think of cartels or anything that constitutes her work life.

But most importantly, she does not think of him. The sicario. The wolf. The ghost. (The lonely man who put a gun to her chin and wiped away her tears.)

* * *

 

Kate is woken up by the creak of the floorboards and the telltale swish of fabric in the middle of the night. She jolts awake in a loose t-shirt at the edge of the bed, the blanket long been shoved aside because of the heat.

She automatically reaches for the nightstand and feels for a gun or a knife then realizing that she left all of that at Arizona.

Kate squints at the figure silhouetted against the balcony doors.

“Alejandro?” she asks and she is suddenly aware of how she is not wearing anything underneath the loose t-shirt she put on before going to bed. (It's warm enough to forgo the underwear anyway.)

He does not say anything in affirmation but his steady gait as he approaches her is already enough of a confirmation.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” she snarls because how dare he? How dare he intrude upon her life again after forcing her to sign away her dignity and pointing a gun at her chin just a mere month ago?

He does not answer that but instead sits at the foot of her bed. The moonlight partially illuminates his face and Kate makes out the edge of stubble and a tan skin that is marred with straight lines.

(She imagines running a hand on the surface of those lines and immediately chastises herself for thinking that.)

“What the fuck are you doing here Alejandro?” she repeats, this time putting emphasis on his name. Anger seems to radiate in her bones in waves, sending shockwaves to the air as it engulfs her whole.

“I see that you have not heeded my advice,” he says, a palpable mockery in his tone.

“What?”

“You still haven’t moved,” he says simply, like it’s enough of an answer. (It is.)

“No I haven’t,” she tells him defiantly but she is sure that he can pick up the veiled feebleness in her voice. (Always the wolf.)

He inches closer to her and she unconsciously draws back, pressing herself against the headboard. (Like it’s going to protect her from the wolf on her trail. God, she should’ve bought a gun.)

Up close, his eyes are like twin pools of dark brown. (Watching. Always watching.) His eyes are filled with an indeterminable expression that goes deeper than that of mockery or pity. It makes Kate want to lash out and cower at the same time.

“What are you doing?” she finally asks, letting out a breath she didn’t know she was holding in the first place.

He does not answer that and instead leans closer to her. There is a pause, a moment of realization for Kate before he goes all the way and kisses her.

His tongue darts out and prods her lips open to taste her. Kate, too shocked to do anything, just sits there and watches him with wide eyes. He tastes like tequila and saltwater and something uniquely male and vicious. It intoxicates Kate who has already had a few beers in her system into closing her eyes and kissing him back. The fight for dominance is fierce and it is ultimately Alejandro who wins.

He flips them both onto the bed with him on top. Kate is still a bit too dazed to do anything but lie idly by when he puts her arms on top of her head to remove her shirt. Warm wind immediately assaults her body, making her nipples hard and sensitive. Alejandro runs a tongue over the luscious pink peaks, making her moan as he spreads her legs apart. She is already wet for him. She can feel it down there between her thighs as he kisses her navel. He runs a tongue over the scars he gave her as he grinds his hard cock against her thigh. Everything is so blurred around the edges now as Kate’s lust overwhelms her. There is a rustle of fabric slipping against skin and the sound of a zipper and the unbuckling of a belt as Alejandro extricates himself from the restraints of his clothing. He does it swiftly and efficiently, just like everything about him. There is no fury left inside Kate now to fight him, to shove him off her like she should. His breath is heavy and irregular as he lines himself up to enter her.

“Is it okay?” he asks her and she would’ve laughed herself off if she wasn’t so aroused. She nods hurriedly and he enters her in one swift motion that makes her moan loudly. She is barely aware now of the sound of the waves as it laps against the shoreline. He is thrusting inside her in steady, calculated movements. Her hands slide up and down the vast, muscled expanse of his tanned back just in time with his thrusts. He is masculinity incarnate. His head is at the crook of her shoulder, his lips at the smooth expanse of skin where her shoulder meets her neck. He is not gentle in the sense of the word. The steady but almost-rough gyrating of his hips is enough proof of that. He is here for his pleasure first and foremost. Kate groans out in pleasure once more as he hits a particularly sensitive spot inside her. God, this man will be the death of her. Her nails dig into his back so hard she breaks the skin there, marking him just like he marked her. His thrusts are less rhythmic now and more desperate, the slapping of skin on skin vulgar and palpable in the dead of the night. She is nearing her climax and she knows he is too.

She clenches her teeth and bites back a scream as she blows, tightening around him in rhythmic spasms. He follows soon after, a particularly loud grunt and a telltale whisper of, “Mine,” that Kate doesn’t really hear through the sensations of her own climax. His back arches as he empties himself. By the time they are finished, both of them are panting and heaving in large gulps of air. Kate hasn’t had sex like this in a very long time. He rolls off a condom she wasn’t even aware he had slipped on and throws it in the wastebasket by her bedside.

Kate puts herself in an upright position as the ramifications of his—their actions hit her and she feels so dirty and sick of herself once more that she doesn’t really know what to make of the situation anymore. She had come down from her high.

“We’ll both forget about this,” she says, more to herself than him, “this—this isn’t real. This never happened. Do you understand me?”

She feels, rather than sees him nod in assent behind her back.

"Get out," she manages to croak out in a rough voice. She feels like she's about to scream. (Cry. Lash out. Punch him.)

Alejandro puts on his clothes in silence. He is swift in his movements and she barely notices him vacate the premises.

After she is left alone inside her room, she goes to the bathroom and runs a shower. She makes sure the water is scalding hot before stepping in.

* * *

 

She comes back to the office the following Monday, cutting her vacation a week short.

“Hey, you’re back,” Reggie greets happily. “Got your postcard from Bahamas. You look better than you did the last time I saw you.”

She smiles feebly at him. It’s true; she does look better now than she did about two weeks ago. Her skin looks a bit more rejuvenated and there are almost no traces of dark circles under her eyes. Aside from that, she’s also gained a little more weight. (Probably from the lobsters.)

“Thanks,” she says, setting her backpack on the table beside her work computer. She tries not to think about Alejandro or what happened inside the inn a few days prior. After all, it really won’t do her any good. It’s not like he’s in any emotional turmoil right now because of what happened.

It was a one-time thing. A one-night only kind of thing.

She powers up her computer and resumes working on the report she had left unfinished two weeks before.

She prints out the report and storms into Jennings’s office.

“I want to be sent back to the field,” she states simply. Jennings simply looks her up and down before nodding, suitably convinced that she's fit for active service again. “Sure Kate.”

_It’s a one-time thing. A one-time thing._

* * *

 

By Wednesday, Kate is kicking down a door of a confirmed kidnapper of a young woman named Sarah Lagos. She finds her handcuffed to a bedpost with tears streaming down her face as Reggie apprehends the kidnapper out the front yard.

The events of Bahamas is now stored in a box in the periphery of her mental storage, where she’ll (hopefully) leave it be.

She may not be a wolf, but she is not a sheep either.

(And she’ll be damned if she’ll allow him to cow her once more.)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey dear readers! This is my first time writing for this ship and fandom in general and I hope that my writing wasn't too bad. XD So anyway, thanks for reading this fic. Don't forget to place kudos if you liked it. You can also rant if you didn't though. XD Constructive criticism is always welcome. (Please, sound off in the comments below if you have something to say. I'm open to anything.)


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